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Heads face new ‘fair funding’ power struggle

New report highlights fears that staff may become more overworked and exposed

Power, devolution, control, autonomy, responsibility. Call it what you will, Scotland’s headteachers are going to get a whole lot more of it. Now, detailed analysis of reaction to this landmark shift has laid bare fears over the financial, legal and workload burdens that may shift onto schools – as well as concerns that vulnerable pupils will fall between newly created cracks in the system.

Quietly published at the same time as a flurry of education statistics and funding announcements, analysis for the Scottish government on responses to a consultation around “fair funding” for schools ...

System failure

Quotes from the report:

“Freedom to be flexible in the appointment of staff is very important in terms of being able to drive forward improvement: as educational priorities change, headteachers need to be able to vary their staffing structures to fit.” – A headteacher

“The headteacher knows [what] the schools needs more than anyone else and, without this control [over educational resources] a strong education will falter.” – A parent council

“What schools need is improved funding levels, not a complex redistribution of the current inadequate funding.” – An unnamed organisation

“No system can make up for manifest funding shortages and cutting of services that benefit and assist pupils.” – A parent

“The worry of our parent council would be that funding could eventually be redirected away from disadvantaged pupils who may not have as loud a voice as pupils from advantaged areas/backgrounds.” – A parent council

Shaking things up

School Leaders Scotland (SLS) believes that a shake-up of school funding is essential, given the large disparities in what headteachers have to spend.

The union’s general secretary, Jim Thewliss, showed Tes Scotland information that SLS gathered from a recent Freedom of Information request sent to local authorities.

“There was absolute variance across Scotland,” he says, adding that the higher financial demands of running rural schools did not fully explain the differences.

Using information on staffing formulas and funding provided by local authorities, he compiled the following table to exemplify stark financial differences around Scotland. All schools except “E” are in the Central Belt.

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